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Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends
Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends is an American animated TV series created and produced at Cartoon Network Studios by animator Craig McCracken, creator of The Powerpuff Girls. It first premiered on Cartoon Network on May 7, 2004, as a 90-minute made-for-TV movie, which led to a series of half-hour episodes. The series currently airs on Cartoon Network and its affiliates worldwide, except in Canada where it has aired on English and Francophone Teletoon networks due to Canadian television ownership regulations. Concept In the series universe, imaginary friends become physical beings the instant a child imagines them; unlike how the concept often works on other shows, an Imaginary Friend is totally real, and can be seen, heard and felt by all under most circumstances. Unfortunately for them, the children outgrow them. When this happens, the friends are left to fend for themselves. Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends was founded by the elderly Madame Foster to provide a foster home for abandoned imaginary friends. There are (according to "Setting A President") 1,340 imaginary friends at Foster's Home; however at the end of "Emancipation Complication" Madame Foster states that there are 2,038 imaginary friends currently residing in the house plus Bloo and Mr. Herriman. Bloo suggested that the house itself may be imaginary . The house motto is "Where good ideas are not forgotten". The inspiration came when McCracken and his wife, Lauren Faust, adopted a pair of dogs from an adoption shelter. McCracken wondered how things would be if there was a similar place for childhood imaginary friends. Geography Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends is supposedly located at 1123 Wilson Way in an unknown city and state in the USA. The founder of the town is revealed to be Elwood P. Dowd, the main character in the play and movie "Harvey". There are numerous clues and hints in the show as to the location of the house for example: *There is snow during winter *When the friends are at a beach a weather station on cable reports weather in Spokane, Washington, but also on Topeka, Kansas, *A new Imaginary Friend says he is from Canada and when his creator arrives with his parents to pick him up, they mentioned that they took only 45 minutes by train with two stops *A sign for Northern New Hampshire is partially seen during Bloo's road trip Lauren Faust specifically stated, in a thread on the "Never Forgotten Foster's Home Community Forum", that Foster's is located in the Pacific Northwest of the United States . Imaginary Friends (standing backwards), Francis "Frankie" Foster, Mr. Herriman, Wilt, and Eduardo (partly hidden). Sitting on the couch from left to right, Blooregard Q. Kazoo (a.k.a. Bloo), Madame Foster and Mac.]] The exact information about Imaginary Friends (or "Friends" for short) is given in bits and pieces throughout the show. Imaginary Friends are fully "real" once created, and can be seen by anyone, not just their creators. Often, they take the form of something strange and bizarre from the child's imagination-, such as Duchess or Coco. Other Imaginary Friends seem to be very simple, especially those made by younger children, such as Bloo or the Scribbles. Many Friends (particularly unimportant ones) seem to be nothing more than normal objects brought to life; such examples include a refrigerator friend named Fridgey, an oven friend named Oveny, etc. Still other Friends look human-; or example, at Christmas time children often become so excited they imagine up Friends who look like Santa Claus, leading to a high concentration of them at Foster's each December. Two "subspecies" of Imaginary Friend are known: Scribbles, which are created by very small children, and Extremosauruses, created by teenagers. The former are small and look, essentially, like scribbled lines a child might draw; they are very bothersome and, as a result, Foster's kept them locked in a single room of the house for a long while. They are not very intelligent, but the other Friends of the house eventually realized they could teach each one a single task to do. They also appear to have no structural form, as imaginary friends can walk, swim, or lie on them (in Bloo's case, he was able to lay down on an entire chair, which was constructed entirely from scribbles). In "The Trouble With Scribbles", they proved to be very popular with adults, because of their ability to do household chores with sufficient ease, and this in turn resulted in many of them being adopted, to the point where only one scribble remained. Extremosauruses are more varied, and are incredibly dangerous; they usually appear as monsters. Despite this, however, in "Eddie Monster", Extremosauruses are shown to be loyal to their creators, much like ordinary friends. Extremosauruses also vary greatly in design, and make several connections to manga, anime, and various illustrative styles. In 'House of Bloos', an Extremosaurus that attacks Mac, resembles nothing more that a massive sphere supported by four legs, constructed of mines. But in the episode mentioned, they range from evil reptilian- like creatures, to knights, aliens, and to a more humourus extent, a Pikachu-like being with tentacles. Extremosauruses are normally locked up in a cage behind the house, which is first seen in the pilot episode, "House of Bloo's". It is unknown to what species ordinary friends (such as Bloo, Wilt, or Eduardo) belong, or if they are known to have a species at all. It should also be noted that in the episode "Room With a Feud", Wilt, Eduardo and Coco were asked to look after some of the younger friends, to put them to sleep. These friends were slightly smaller than the average baby, yet still had the appearance of an ordinary friend. It is unknown to what species these friends belong. Imaginary friends are sometimes designated as a specific type of friend. For example, Eduardo is commonly referred to as a 'guardian' friend, due to his protective nature. In "Sight for Sore Eyes", Ivan states that he is a "seeing-eye" friend, as he helps his blind creator, Stevie, and although it has never been mentioned in the series, Wilt is regarded as a 'helper' friend, because of his helpful nature, and inability to refuse tasks handed to him by other imaginary friends. Imaginary Friends very rarely age or change their appearance at any point in their lives. It is unknown if Friends marry or have children---a character once thought Mr. Herriman and Coco were married, however, he was also shown to be very ignorant about Friends, so this may have been an error on his part. There is some indication Imaginary Friends can have children. such as Bloo, pretending to be an old man, claiming Mac was his descendant (with no one even arguing about the issue of species). Imaginary Friends imagined by the same person can be called "siblings," however, as if their creators were a parent (though, in one case, Imaginary Friends created by real-life siblings referred to each other as brother and sister, rather than cousins). It is unknown how old Imaginary Friends can live to be, or indeed, if they die at all. In "Say It Isn't Sew", in a dream sequence, Bloo is shown considerably aged, although this is probably an exaggeration of Bloo's thoughts at the present time. In "Bloo Done It", an imaginary friend named Mr. Pockets is shown to have been around for decades, with no change in appearance. Imaginary Friends may only 'die' if they are forgotten entirely, hence the Foster's motto. But apparently in the episode "Seeing Red", Terrence creates an imaginary friend that is literally a slice of pizza, and proceeds to eat him. It's unknown if this is supposed to be a joke, or imaginary friends made to become food items and be eaten, and killed. A similar occurrence happened in the episode "Cookie Dough" when the afore-mentioned Oveny (an imaginary friend created to bake cookies) apparently exploded when Bloo set his temperature to 2500 degrees (although, it could have been an ordinary oven instead) causing the kitchen roof to explode. Imaginary Friends are created by humans, and their creation seems to be a mixture of conscious and subconscious on the part of the creator---for example, Nina Valarossa (Eduardo's creator) explained that she consciously created Eduardo to protect her from bullies and be her playmate; however, she unconsciously created his timid personality because it allowed her to stand up in defense of him, teaching her to be braver. It is interesting to note that often, Friends and their creators have differing personalities (such as well-behaved Mac producing selfish Bloo, or wild Madame Foster creating stuffy Mr. Herriman); this may be related to how a Friend is made in a child's mind. Imaginary friends are often created when a child needs something, like Terrence imagined two imaginary friends in "Seeing Red", a talking slice of pizza because he was hungry and Red because he needed someone to beat up Bloo. In the episode "Good Wilt Hunting" another fact about imaginary friends is discovered, that they can lose or break their limbs, like Wilt, when he played with his creator against a heavy basketball-headed friend that almost crushed his creator. Wilt quickly pushed his creator and got his arm severely crushed and his eye-stalk broken. Imaginary Food friends are the most endangered Imaginary friends of all because they can be eaten, as seen in "Dinner Is Swerved" where a chicken leg like friend told Mac and Bloo that he escaped from fat camp because they ate them there. Episode list and DVD Sets The show currently has 65 episodes spanning across five seasons, and also has aired 19 shorts. Most Cartoon Network shows last up to the 65-episode range, which has always been the standard for many cable cartoons.The show will return for a sixth season of 13 episodes, bringing the total amount of episodes to 78. There are currently two season sets out on DVD covering Seasons One and Two. Seasons Three and Four will be available eventually. Several episodes have appeared on other Cartoon Network DVD releases. Awards Annie Awards The show was nominated for four Annie Awards in 2004, and five more in 2005, winning two awards that year for Best Original Music in a Television Series (James L. Venable and Jennifer Kes Remington for "Duchess of Wails") and Production Design in an Animated TV Series (McCracken with Mike Moon, David Dunnet and Martin Ansolabehere for the Christmas episode "A Lost Claus"). Five more nominations came in 2006, with three wins as Best Animated Television Production, Best Original Music in a TV Series (Venable and Remington winning again for "One False Movie") and Production Design in a TV Series (Ansolabehere by himself for the one-hour "Good Wilt Hunting" episode). Venable and Remington teamed up for the show's lone Annie nominee in 2007, for their original music in a TV series for "The Bloo Superdude and the Magic Potato of Power". Emmy Awards The show has won a total of five Emmy Awards. The episode "House of Bloo's" won two Emmy Awards for art direction (Mike Moon) and character design (Craig McCracken). "World Wide Wabbit" won an Emmy for best storyboard (Ed Baker). The show's theme song (described by McCracken as "psychedelic ragtime" and written by Venable) was nominated for Best TV Show Theme in 2005, but lost to Danny Elfman's theme to Desperate Housewives. The episode "Go Goo Go" was nominated for Best Animated Program Under One Hour in 2006, and Character Design supervisor Shannon Tindle won an Emmy that same year for that same episode. The 2006 episode "Good Wilt Hunting" was nominated in 2005 for Best Animated Program One Hour or Longer, but lost to the Camp Lazlo episode "Where's Lazlo?". However, David Dunnet won an Emmy for his background key design for said episode. Merchandising Other than in-house items such as Cartoon Network's internet shop (T-Shirts, a Bloo plush, etc.), there has not been much as far as major products. As of 2006, there has been a statue series with Bloo, Mac, and Eduardo featured in the first statue. A second statue features Frankie, Madame Foster, and Mr. Herriman released in December of 2006, and the third in the series featuring Wilt and Coco was released in January of 2007. Two limited edition inkjet (giclée) cels — one with the cast posing for a picture, the other styled like a cross-stitch — were also created. Since then, the merchandising has begun to pick up steam. Burger King had nine toys in a kids meal give-away promotion in April and May of 2006, Scholastic Books has printed activity and story books based on episodes, and the complete first season of episodes were made available on Apple's iTunes downloading service as well as a Game Boy Advance game created by CRAVE Entertainment made its' debut in the Fall of 2006. A new game for Nintendo DS debuted in the fall of 2007 titled "Imagination Invaders", and computerized toy makers Leap Frog has an educational spelling game starring the characters. In September, two Foster's toys was part of a McDonald's Happy Meal toy giveaway. Since January of 2007, as part of an overall deal with Cartoon Network, Mattel has released items related to the mass marketing of the show. Additionally, T-shirts and other merchandise featuring the characters made by punk rock clothing maker Mighty Fine and accessories made by Loungefly have been appearing in popular stores such as Hot Topic, who have also produced a gift card featuring Mac and Cheese. Online promotions "Adoption" online In 2005, Cartoon Network Latin America website gave viewers a chance to adopt an imaginary friend online, with Wilt, Coco, and Eduardo as their choices. Similar to Neopets, the players gave their friends food to eat (some good, some not so good) and games to play to keep their imaginary friend happy. At the end of the promotional period, the adopters got a certificate thanking them for participating. In September 2005, a similar month long game was launched in the United States on Cartoon Network's official site, along with a separate link at FostersFriends.com. In addition to the four previously mentioned friends, players could adopt Uncle Pockets, Cheese, or Ivan. This updated version also used the voice actors associated with those characters, improved graphics, and increased use of Flash animation. Until December 10, 2005, those who made adoptions were able to keep an eye on them. Many of the character reactions have been incorporated into bumpers since May 29, 2006 on Cartoon Network. Through late 2006 and into 2007, this game was known as "Adopt An Imaginary Friend 2" on Cartoon Network's Latin American site. Big Fat Awesome House Party On May 15, 2006, Cartoon Network introduced a new online game, Big Fat Awesome House Party, which allows players to create an online friend to join Bloo and the others in a one-year game online, and earn points that would give them gifts cards and other on-line "merchandise" for their albums and that friend made from one of over 900,000 possible characters could wind up in a future episode of Foster's. The game has become so popular, in May of 2007, Cartoon Network announced that the game would continue for six more months, into November of that year.BFAHP web site Race For Your Life! An upcoming episode, titled "Race For Your Life!", will allow viewers to pick the winner of a episode-long race between Mac and Bloo on cartoonnetwork.com starting on May 19. The episode will air ten days later, with the alternate ending shown online following that program. Trivia * In the short episode of The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy - "Dream date" in the ending it is revealed that the whole story was just a dream of Wilt. When he woke up he said: "I'm sorry, but what a weird dream. I even don't know any of those people." When the short was available in Cartoon Network Video, it was not only in the category of Billy and Mandy, it was also in the Foster's category. References External links * Official site * [http://fosterstv.blogspot.com/ BLOGregard Q. Kazoo], the official production blog for the show. * [http://fridays.toonzone.net/fosters/index.html The Very Unofficial Guide to Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends], a fan site with an interview with McCracken and show information hosted by Toon Zone. * [http://www.fosters-home.com/ Never Forgotten], A Foster's fansite maintained by Cynthia "Sparky" Read.